I tensed my guts, trying to protect myself, and tucked my elbows close, using my left to hit him across the face. He took another swipe at me but I fended it off, keeping my elbows locked and my hands up, guarding my face. I hit him in the nose twice, causing him to cry out, then his whole body heaved as he bucked and threw me forward. I tried to catch myself and roll out of it but my head hit the metal of the platform and I saw stars. My body came to a landing, pain racing down my back, and while I was trying to shake the colors out of my vision he got on top of me and punched me in the face twice.
I was stunned and he grabbed hold of me by the front of my blouse, holding me up while he hit me again. I heard the cloth tear and felt my head hit the cold metal, a fog surrounding me. “It could have been really nice between us, Sienna, but you just had to go and screw it all up.” He was pacing around me now, and I saw him raise a leg and then felt a searing pain in my ribs. “Now you’ve exposed our location, you’ve ruined any chance of us having a pleasant evening, and what am I supposed to tell my bosses when I bring you to them? I was supposed to deliver you alive, but honestly, I don’t think that’s gonna happen now.” He kicked me again, and I heard a scream, and it took my sluggish mind a minute to work out that it was my voice doing the screaming.
“I mean, look at this.” He grabbed me by the face and shook me, forcing me to look at him. “You broke my nose. Sure, it’ll heal, but nobody does that. Not to me. Especially not some little teenage bitch that should have been grateful I even took the time to pay attention to her.” He punched me in the face again, but I could barely feel it by this point. “I mean, it would have been good between us. Better than you’d ever have again, that’s for sure. But you had to go and—”
I had steadily inched my left leg up, resting the bottom of my foot on the ground. I hoped he would just assume I was trying to curl up in the fetal position. I wasn’t, although I was sure that’d feel better than the way I was laying presently. My hand reached down, grasping, trying not to be obvious, while he was directing all his hatred at my face. I pulled the knife Glen Parks had told me to carry as a backup out of its strap. I was grateful, not for the first time in the last few minutes, that James had never gotten me out of my pants, or he would have seen it.
I brought the knife across his face with a blind stroke. I had aimed to land it in his temple, but he moved at the last second and I caught him with a jagged slash just under his left eye and punctured his nose. He let out a cry and screamed as he dropped me, my shoulders hitting the metal catwalk again, but without much pain this time. I rolled to my hands and knees, still clenching the knife. “I had to go and what? Save myself from doing something I’d regret?” I spit blood in his face as I got to my knees. “Thank God. I can’t believe I let you touch me, you soulless piece of filth—”
He yelled and jumped from where he lay to come at me, grabbing my hand that was holding the knife before I could attack him with it. He slammed me down again and I struggled, but I felt him reversing the grip. I poured the last of my strength into it, but he was too strong, too vicious. I stared into his scarred face as blood dripped down from his nose onto my forehead, smelled his breath, the foulness of it, all trace of sweetness gone. I felt the very tip of the knife against my belly, felt the first sting of pain as it pierced me, just a centimeter, as I fought to keep him from killing me.
He wore a satisfied leer, and the darkness and shadows made him look demonic. “You could have just had me inside—”
Something hit James in the side of the head with devastating force and he flopped off, unconscious. I was breathing deep, panting, and a gloved hand reached down, offering me help. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Charlie said, looking at the little bit of blood running down my belly where he’d stabbed me. “I’ve been with him; you’re not missing anything.”
Chapter 20
“Charlie,” I said, breathing the word like it was the sweetest thing I’d ever said. She helped pull me to my feet. “Please tell me you’re not with Omega too.”
She laughed. “I’m not with Omega. I’m not with anybody.”
I found the strength and balance to stand on my own, and she let me go. She was wearing a man’s jacket, which she had kept between us while she was helping me up. I saw a watch on her wrist, a shining, gold one that looked like it was at least a couple sizes too big. As I stared closer at it, I realized it was a man’s watch. She caught me looking and glanced down. “Oh, yeah, this? From that guy in the bar last night.”
“Oh?” I didn’t really care. My head was still spinning. “That was nice of him.” I looked around and saw a small control panel a few feet away, built into the railing, almost nondescript. “I thought you were gonna stay in Eau Claire?”
She shrugged. “I did, until I got bored. Then I just looked you up through your phone’s GPS and headed this way. Things got a little dicey when I found your flamed-out vehicle, but the guards were all pretty distracted by something going on over on the other side of the building. Sounded like a tornado or something.”
I hobbled to the nearest railing and leaned against it. “Sounds like Reed. How long ago was that?”
She shrugged again, uncaring. “I dunno. Ten minutes? I came in through one of the unguarded doors while it was going down. Looked around the building until I stumbled in here. Looks like my timing was good. What are you doing here?”
I wondered how long I had been down here. I looked at the panel again, sliding down the railing toward it. “Omega attacked the Directorate. We came to find out what they were hiding here.”
“Oh?” She made her way over to me, leaving James unmoving in a pile on the platform. “So what is it?”
“Something called Andromeda.”
“Huh,” she said, disinterested, as she looked over the edge of the platform. “Sounds boring. And old.”
“I don’t know what it is, honestly.” I stared down at the panel, trying to make sense of it. There was only one button lit up, and it was an option to unlock something, a thought which made me uneasy. I took a deep breath and thought it over. I was here to find out what they were doing, but what if it was a monster of some sort? Between Wolfe, Henderschott and James, Omega certainly loved their monsters. I stared at the unlock button until a finger came down from behind me and pushed it.
I turned and Charlie was there, smiling at me, impish. “No guts, no glory, kiddo.”
A slight rumble ran through the room and lights came on, casting it in blue and orange light. There were four different catwalk bridges that led to the central platform we were standing on. Below us, there had to be at least a hundred chemical tanks surrounding an oversized apparatus that was circular, and lined up perfectly so that something could be raised from the top of it into the center circle of the platform.
The control panel lit up, giving me a host of options. I stared at it, trying to take it all in. Charlie peered over my shoulder, her breath heavy and kinda sour. “What’s this one do?” She pushed a big red button, and I heard a rumbling from below us as machinery sprang to life. The circular grate in the middle of our platform squeaked and retracted to the side, leaving a hole in the middle of the floor.
“Stop,” I said.
“Soooo cautious,” she said. “Boring, boring, boring. You need a little metal in your life, kid, a little action.”
I felt the result of all the action I’d experienced today in my bones, in the pains, the aches and blood that still ran freely from different places on my anatomy. “Actually, I could do with a little less action at this point.”
“Boooring,” she said again. “Why must all you people lead such mundane little lives? I thought maybe you were different than the rest. I thought you were like me.”